


The Selkie

by Little_Miss_Numbers



Category: Hawaii Five-0 (2010)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Crack, Case Fic, Crack, Folklore, M/M, Selkie!Steve, Selkies, sort of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-23
Updated: 2015-04-23
Packaged: 2018-03-25 09:27:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,627
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3805279
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Little_Miss_Numbers/pseuds/Little_Miss_Numbers
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Where the difference between seals and SEALs is blurrier than Danny thinks and everything is going pretty well until someone steals Steve's skin.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Selkie

**Author's Note:**

> This whole thing came about because I wanted a fic with Steve as a seal purely for the word play. I make no apologies. Crack, a bit self indulgent, hopefully fun.
> 
> Set sometime during the first half of season 2 because that's where I was in the show when I wrote it.

As a rule, Danny wasn't a crier. But sometimes life sucks and pressures build up and it feels really good to just sit on the rocky shore and just let yourself feel all the pain you've been been bottling up over the past few months. And if a few tears happened to escape and fall away into the ocean, the catharsis itself was nice. And Danny is feeling like he'll at least be able to get through the next week, until his next weekend with Grace. And that should be alright.

The next day John McGarrett is murdered in his study and Danny's entire life gets turned upside down.

 

\----

 

_1.2 years later_

They're all at Steve's house, enjoying an impromptu barbeque after a particularly wicked case. And everyone is enjoying some much needed R&R. And Danny is watching Steve. Because Danny is always watching Steve. Because Steve is a beautiful person and he would feel bad except that everyone watches Steve. Lori is doing it right now. Not even trying to hide it as she follows the line of muscles down his back through his shirt, to the exposed bit of skin on the left where his khakis are riding a bit low. Kono is talking to Chin, but she glances over every once in a while before Chin draws her attention back.

Kamekone seems happily oblivious, as does Chin, but Max always got adorably flustered around Steve. And Danny always feels a bit of camaraderie for the other occasional guy who seemed to struggle as much as he did with the whirlwind that is Steve.

And Steve, Steve sees none of it as he stares off into the ocean. Danny comes to stand beside him glancing down at the herd of seals that seem to live perpetually on his beach and then further out into the horizon itself. "Thinking deep thoughts?" he asks. "You look a bit meloncholy."

But Steve turns away from the ocean and smiles at Danny. "Just enjoying the night air."

Steve has such a beautiful smile, and Danny can feel his face soften just from looking at it. 

"Danny," Steve starts, as if there's something important he needs to say and Danny if he's honest is only really half listening, half hoping Steve might lean down and close the distance between them. 

And then Lori accidentally-but-probably-on-purpose bumps into him and looks flustered saying something about new heels and uneven floors and the moment is gone and Danny is shaking his head clear, telling Lori not to worry about it, while Steve looks at them with something resembling aneurism face.

"It's, uh...it's getting late. I should really go, I have Grace tomorrow morning, and there's a lot of stuff I want to do--"

"Yeah, yeah," says Steve nodding. "Have a good weekend, say hi to Gracie for me."

When Danny gets to his car, he just sits there for a minute before turning the engine on. That one--that was really close. If he doesn't watch himself he's going to be in a lot of trouble.

 

Danny's weekend with Grace makes it until about 2pm, after a lunch at the beach but before they pick out some princess movies to marathon for the evening, when Danny gets called back into work.

When he finds out why, he becomes a lot less resentful that he's going to miss falling asleep to Tangled with his daughter.

"There's signs the front door was forced open, but no real sign of a struggle," explains Chin walking through Steve's still pristine house. "Except here," he says pointing out a usually locked closet with the door handle broken off. 

Danny looks inside and just sees a bunch of coats. 

"Nothing valuable appears to be missing," Chin keeps going. "Electronics, his mom's old jewelry, nothing else is even disturbed."

"And Steve?" Danny asks, because he knows Steve and it there is no way they could get him out of his house with minimal fuss if he didn't want to go.

"He called for backup at 10am, when HPD arrived he was already gone."

Danny frowns, because none of this is making any sense. Because Steve doesn't just go off with kidnappers and there's no sign of a struggle. But he wouldn't have called for backup and then not bothered to tell them that he was fine if it turned out to be a misunderstanding, would he? 

"Did you try calling him?"

Chin hits a button on his phone and Danny hears Steve cell ring from upstairs. 

"Never mind."

 

\----

 

Steve's case leads nowhere. None of it makes any sense and Danny is starting to worry. And just to make matters worse, Monday morning greets them with a string of three bank robberies. One right after the other, each carried out with perfect precision, out and gone before 5-0 even arrives.

investigating the scene afterwards, it's flawless. There's no fingerprints, the cameras shut off at the exact same moment. None of the witnesses can point out anything distinctive about any of them.

"They were wearing balaclavas."

"They seemed to be men."

"They wore a lot of black."

"They didn't say anything except to tell us to get down and not to try anything."

Tuesday there's two more. Even though they're working full days, they're not finding any patterns.

Wednesday somebody gets the license of the getaway car, they find out it was stolen two hours previous a few blocks away, and find it again half an hour after the robbery half a block from 5-0 headquarters. Danny is pretty sure just to mock them. Forensics goes over it top to bottom. They don't even find a hair.

On Thursday they do one better, and one of the hostages actually filmed the robbery with their cell phone.

"They look like they're military," comments Kono as she watches the soundless feed at HQ. "Like that feed of that SEAL mission they showed us that one time."

And she's right, Danny thinks. They move with exact precision, like they've trained for this. The tall guy calling the shots stands just like Steve does. "We should look into vets."

And they're still no closer to finding Steve and Danny is starting to worry himself sick.

"We should just send out a lookout for swooning girls," says Danny mostly as a joke. Except that's exactly how he finally does spot Steve. He's walking down the street from his car to the Chinese place Lori ordered their supper from when he hears a group of girls giggling, and he turns and sees Steve walking down the street with some guy he's never seen before like they're old friends. Like he hasn't been missing without a trace for days. 

"Steve!" calls Danny before he thinks better of it. 

And Steve turns and his eyes go wide and him and his friend are off. 

Danny stands dumbfounded for a good 15 seconds before his brain catches up and he gives chase. And Steve always was faster than him, and his friend seems a bit slower but Steve has his arm and knows these streets, and two alleyways and a large chain link fence later and Danny's lost him.

"At least we know he's okay," Chin points out later after Danny gets back tells them what happened. 

"But it makes no sense." Danny looks at Lori, "You're the profiler, any of this make sense to you?"

"You said Steve helped the guy get away?" she asks frowning. And Danny knows she's as confused as he is.

"Did you get a good look at him?" asks Kono. "Maybe we can identify him."

Except tall, short brown hair and kind of a bent nose isn't much of a description to go off, and Danny didn't get a good enough look at the guy to give them more.

There's nothing for three days except two more bank robberies. And at this point HPD is working with all the banks that haven't been hit yet to try and still combing carefully over each crime scene, hoping this time will be the time they screw up somewhere. 

And then, miracle of miracles, they find a single hair outside the bank vault. It gets sent to the lab and finally traced back to, of all people, bent nosed friend of Steve's.

And Danny just stares for a minute before he makes them play that cell phone footage from the earlier robbery, and Danny realises that he stands like Steve because he is Steve. And the ground seems to shift uncomfortably underneath him making him grab hold of the computer table for balance.

"There's an explanation," says Chin firmly. "There's some reason he's doing this. Blackmail, extortion, something."

And Danny desperately wants to believe that. So he pulls up the picture of Bent Nose again, whose name is apparently Glen Reid and they go from there.

Glen Reid is from the Orkney Islands. 42, white, Caucasian, and a tattoo on his shoulder of a seal swimming. He had spent 15 years serving in the Royal Navy before he'd gotten into some trouble, which apparently involved drugs and getting into fights and was dismissed with disgrace.

"Which means he lost his pension," Kono points out.

"Which is maybe why he felt justified pulling a string of bank robberies across Glasgow," suggests Lori as they go over the charges waiting for him if he ever sets foot back in British territory. "Fifteen years of service, he probably felt the state owed him something."

The rest of the afternoon is spent digging and not only do they figure out how he got onto the island, they find the two other bank robbers, other than Steve, a petite woman brown haired woman named Tara Menzies and a large gruff guy named Frank Madison who arrived with him and fit the profiles of the other two to a tee. 

Kono had been right, every one of them had a military background.

"But how does Steve know them?" Chin voices the question that's on everyone's mind.

"Maybe from his time in the navy?" suggests Kono. Because it makes sense, British and American navy do war games together, do joint operations together, and their time served definitely overlaps. But for some reason it just doesn't sit right with Danny, just like nothing about this case seems to sit right with Danny.

Two days later he's standing in a back alley of an abandoned grocery store, one of three possibilities Chin had narrowed down to as a possible temporary hideout. And this is obviously the right one, because Steve is here pointing a gun at him to match the one Danny has aimed at Steve.

A second later Glen himself steps out of the abandoned grocery store, "What's goin' on?"

"I heard a noise, thought someone might be sneaking around," says Steve, not taking his eyes of Danny. "Come on, Danny, we both know you won't shoot me."

He's right, no matter how confused Danny is, he knows he doesn't have it in him. But Steve is still leveling his gun carefully back at Danny as if to say the same might not be true of him. Two weeks ago Danny wouldn't have believed it. Now he's not so sure.

So Danny drops his gun.

Steve looks momentarily relieved.

"What are ye waiting for?" asks Glen Reid in a thick Scottish accent. "Shoot him."

"I shoot him and that gunshot is going to be heard by everyone in a 2 mile radius," says Steve. "You want to run early and leave behind the body of a dead cop? Because I guarantee they'll have us surrounded within the hour."

Glen is glaring, "If we leave him alive he can identify us."

"I guarantee he can identify us all already," says Steve. "If he didn't have it all figured out from the moment he spotted us downtown, and doesn't have our entire MO down by now, then I'd be pretty disappointed in my team."

Steve looks at Danny, and correctly reads his expression and smirks. "Yeah, he knows."

Glen is frowning. "What do you suggest then?"

"We only need half an hour," says Steve. He addresses Danny, "Get out your phone and call Chin, tell him the building's deserted but you're going to look around for a bit first before heading back to HQ. Don't try anything."

Not that Danny thinks he can, because any code he knows for letting Chin know something's off, Steve knows too. And Steve is still holding that gun straight at Danny, and Danny is watching him for a sign, a signal, anything to show him that he's not serious and finding nothing. So Danny reaches for his phone and Steve cocks his gun, "Slowly."

So Danny reaches slowly and deliberately for his phone which is in his front pocket like it always is and pulls it out so both his hands are back in plain view.

He dials Chin. 

"Yeah, nothing here," he says as casually as he can manage considering the circumstances. "I'm just gonna poke around a bit, see if there's any sign they were ever here...Yeah...I'll head back to HQ when I'm done."

He hangs up and Steve looks satisfied. 

"Inside," he says, motioning to the door with a glance.

Reid watches him go in with a deeply suspicious look.

It's not much of a hideout, just a giant white room with glass doors in front and an abandoned bag of dutch chips on the floor. Though Danny knew they were cycling hideouts. Nearby were Tara Menzies and Frank Madison, watching curiously. 

"What's going on?" asks Tara as Steve roughly shoves Danny into an old wooden chair hanging around and starts tying him up.

"What's going on," says Steve, "is that your boyfriend here fucked up and gave away our location at the last heist." He pulls the last of the rope tight, and Danny is pretty sure his hands are going to be asleep within the minute.

Steve goes over to Frank and he looks downright pissed. And despite the fact that Frank is stockier and has at least 3 inches on Steve, Steve towers over him. In over a year of working with Steve, Danny has never seen him like this. 

"These heists depend on precise discipline!" he snaps. "When I say jump, I expect you to say 'how high?" not give me snark and reference hiding out in grocery stores." he says referring to the codded language Frank had used that had been repeated by a hostage and eventually led Danny here.

Frank is glowering, "And why's he still alive then? The seal want to protect his friend and get us all caught?"

And Danny gaps when Steve just rolls his eyes.

"You know that's not how it works," says Glen with a smirk. 

And Danny's mind is racing, trying to figure out a reason for Steve to be acting like he is and still somehow be on his side. Maybe he's gone undercover for the navy, and they hadn't thought 5-0 was important enough to tell them. Maybe Chin was right and they're extorting him. Maybe Glen has Mary locked in a closet somewhere. Danny's brain just keeps cycling through excuses, each more unlikely than the next. But with all of these situation, Steve would still be on his side. He'd clue him in. He wouldn't tie the ropes so tight that Danny's hands are already pins and needles.

"The cop looks confused," says Tara obviously amused. She knows, Danny realises. Everyone in this room probably does except for him.

"Let him stew," says Steve. "We've got to get to work if we're going to get out of here before they notice he's missing."

Not surprisingly most of the work is done where Danny can't see them. They're off on the other side of the store, out of his line of sight, and keeping their voices down so all Danny ever manages to catch are people's names. Like Frank, they seem to prefer calling Steve 'seal' and Danny makes a note for when he gets out of here to let Kono know it looks like she was right about her navy theory.

He sees Steve a few more times. He patrols the area like clockwork, obviously keeping an eye out, but as Danny watches his eyes carefully scan the room, he also think Steve might be looking for something. He never looks at Danny.

At the very least Danny's comforted by the fact that Steve doesn't look happy. At one point he stops beside a nearby wall and leans back looking positively broody. 

Then Glen calls, "We're ready to go."

And Steve yells back, "On my way, boss," and pushes off from the wall and heads back like Danny isn't even there.

"You son of a bitch!" Danny calls after him. "Are you just going to leave me here?"

Steve looks at Danny like he'd honestly forgotten he was there. And then his lip tugged up and he looked at Danny with obvious affection, and Danny swore he didn't know which way was up anymore.

"You'll be fine, Danny," he says. "5-0 will miss you eventually."

"So that's it then? You're just going to walk away, rob another bank, go further underground? Without even telling me why?"

Steve sighs and Danny still can't get a read on him and it's started to drive him a bit mad. "I'm sorry Danny, but I work for Reid now," he says as if that tells him anything at all. "We'll be off the island soon enough. Probably best if you just forget me altogether."

Danny figures his face must be doing a pretty good job of expressing all the hurt and confusion he's feeling right at the moment, because Steve's face softens, looking pained, and he crouches down so he's eye-level with Danny.

"Danny, you don't understand, I'm a seal," Steve says it like he's telling Danny something deeply personal.

"What? I know you're a SEAL. What does that have to do with any of this?" He wonders if it's supposed to be a clue. If he's confirming Kono's theory.

And Steve looks momentarily astonished. He opens his mouth to say more, but he's cut off by Glen yelling from across the room, "Hurry up! We need to get out before they realise he's missing."

And Steve leaves without another word. As Danny watches them go he can see a spotted fin that's part of Glen's tattoo sticking out from the strap of his athletic shirt. 

 

"I don't believe it," says Kono back at HQ. "Steve wouldn't just switch sides."

Danny can tell by Chin's frown and the way Lori looks like she's trying to set the world on fire with her mind that they both agree.

"Look, I'm just repeating what he told me," says Danny. And honestly at this point he has no idea what to believe. God knows he wants Steve to be innocent just as badly as the rest of them, but his hands are just now starting to feel normal again after being tied to that chair for so long, and he still remembers Steve cocking his gun when Danny was reaching for his phone.

"But why?" asks Lori. 

Danny doesn't have a good answer for that either. "This is going to sound stupid, but I think seals might have something to do with it."

"Like what Kono said?" asks Chin. "You think this has something to do with his time in the navy?"

"No, not SEAL, seal." says Danny. "Like the sea mammal. I know it sounds dumb, but the whole time I was there they kept calling Steve 'seal'. And Reid has a tattoo of a seal on his back. And just before he left, Steve said he was..."

Danny catches himself because repeating it now it sounded absolutely ridiculous. "He might have meant navy SEAL. But it sounded like he thought he was telling me something new. I mean, why would Steve tell me was a SEAL when we already know that? There's got to be something else. Maybe some kind of club or society?"

"Maybe if we can figure out why Glen Reid has that tattoo," Kono sounds more like she's humouring Danny than taking the idea seriously. 

And Chin shuts it right down, "You said Steve talked about getting off the island. We need to focus our resources on catching them," he says.

But Lori is being oddly quiet and Danny can see she's thinking about something.

"What is it?"

Lori shakes her head, "I just had a ridiculous idea," she says. "It's fine."

"No, out with it," says Danny. 

Lori looks reluctant for a minute, but she finally tells them, "What if he really is a seal? Like the sea mammal."

"OK, I take it back, that's ridiculous," says Danny. "Because I have seen the man, and he's missing a few key features."

"Here me out," says Lori, now that she's said it, she seems determined to defend herself. "Glen Reid is from the Orkneys, right? Well my grandmother comes from the highlands. And growing up she used to tell me all these stories about selkies."

The rest of the team looks blank. "They're old Scottish legends about seals that could shed their skin and become humans. Usually they're the lost souls of people who've been lost at sea. The seal on Reid's tattoo was a grey seal, which are the kind from the legends. And frankly, Steve fits the description pretty well, dark hair, round eyes, attractive."

"You're seriously suggesting that Steve is a fantasy creature from old Scottish fairy-tales?" asks Danny. "And why would that make him run off and rob banks?"

"Because Glen Reid stole his skin."

"His skin?" Danny repeats. 

"To become human, selkies have to shed their skin. If a human steals that skin and hides it, the selkie is bound to them until they can steal it back," Lori explains. "If Glen Reid stole Steve's seal skin, it would explain why he's working for him."

"That's ridiculous," says Danny, because it is. Because this is real life and not some stupid Scottish fairytale. But Kono and Chin both look like they're considering it.

"Something did seem to be stolen from a locked closet at Steve's house," Chin points out.

"Lost at sea?" asks Kono. "Would that mean Steve had drowned?"

"Yes, there we go, that is exactly why this is ridiculous," says Danny. "Because Steve has a family and a history and he didn't appear fully formed out of the ocean after having drowned..." but even as Danny says it he realises how he might be wrong. "Have any of us ever seen a picture of Steve's grandfather?"

It takes Chin less than five minutes to track one down. And the four of them find themselves all staring up at a photograph taken in 1940 of Lieutenant-Commander Steve McGarrett, currently assigned to the USS Arizona. And the picture was black and white and the uniform and haircut were both dated, but there was no denying that it was their Steve McGarrett staring back at them. 

Danny feels a chill run down his spine.

"Okay, I've heard of family resembles, but this is ridiculous," says Chin.

"There's no way," Danny agrees.

But except for the very important fact that this is a fairy tale, he has to admit, it all fits together eerily well.

"So where would Glen Reid hide a seal skin?" asks Kono.

 

They do manage to catch Glen Reid and the rest of his team thanks to Chin who managed to figure out how they were choosing their targets and ambushing them at the height of the robbery. 

And Danny finds himself staring across at Steve in an interrogation room, Chin right beside him, and Steve is saying nothing.

"Come on, help us!" He practically begs. "Who are they? How did they find you? Help us so we can help you."

But Steve is just sitting, leaning back in his chair, arms crossed, eyes focused more often on the wall behind them than they are on Danny or Chin.

"At least can you help us figure out where Reid hid your skin?" asks Chin, making him the first person to bring up the selkie theory since the capture.

Danny isn't sure what to expect, he would have been equally surprised if Steve had frowned at him and said 'what are you talking about?' as he would if Steve had confessed to the whole selkie thing right there.

Though in a way he does do the latter, because he looks at the two of them impressed. And then speaks for the first time since being brought in. "You think if I knew that that I'd be here right now? If he was smart, he would have burned it."

There's an ugly sarcastic smile on his face as he says it, and Danny thinks he looks pretty angry. 

"We'll find it," he tells Steve. "If it's still out there, we'll find it."

 

Glen Reid is a smug bastard, and it takes everything Danny has not to just walk over to him and start punching him until he stops moving. 

"How did you know about Steve?" Danny asks. 

"Oh there'd always been rumours about McGarrett," says Reid. "Always a little too good in the water, a little too attractive and charismatic around women. When I found myself in Honolulu I looked into it just to see. And I'm glad I did, he's been pretty useful."

Danny sees red and Chin has to pull him back. "Woah there cowboy, he won't be able to tell us anything if you break his jaw." Chin points out.

And if Glen doesn't seem to think that's the funniest thing he's seen all day. Danny is pretty sure hate isn't a strong enough word for what he's feeling right at that moment.

"Where's the seal skin?" asks Danny. 

Reid just laughs no matter how many ways they ask it and Danny wishes he had broken his jaw because at least then he would have gotten something out of the interview. 

 

It's Frank who finally let's something slip and Danny is beginning to appreciate Frank's loose tongue. It's not much to go on, but he mentions hiding the money somewhere they'll never find it. Says it was his job and only he and Reid know where it is. 

It takes Chin and Kono about 2 hours triangulating their positions over the past few weeks, another 7 hours of talking to people and finding witnesses who had seen either Frank or Reid around. And it's midday the next day, after a full night of searching caves on the coast that Chin comes across their stash.

And there is a small locked chest at the end. And when Danny sees it, he just shoots the lock right off and opens it up and finds what looks like a leather jacket--not much different than the one Chin wears when he's riding his bike--the same brown colour as the monk seals that hang out on Steve's private beach.

 

When Danny brings it back and they show Steve still in holdup, he looks gobsmacked. They open the door and Steve reaches for it, but Danny pulls it back. "I think first, we need to talk," says Danny. 

Steve looks between the jacket and Danny and gives a resigned sigh. And Danny wonders if it's because he knows he owes it to him, or if it's just because Danny is holding that dammed jacket. He feels like he should care but he doesn't.

They end up on Steve's beach, only a few feet away from the monk seals that live there. And Danny's still feeling off-balance from the goodbye they had with Chin, Kono and Lori on the way out the door. Because it was pretty obvious to him that they didn't expect to ever see Steve again. Like knowing somehow meant the spell was broken and they had to lose him.

"Were you ever gonna tell me?" asks Danny, because he has no idea where to even begin, and that seems like as good a place as any, really.

"I don't know," says Steve. "I wanted to, but you know, it's a little unbelievable."

Danny could understand that. He's still clutching Steve's jacket, and he wonders how it can be more than just a simple jacket. But the memory of Steve cocking his gun at Danny is still so fresh in his mind and Danny is willing to accept a supernatural answer before he's willing to believe Steve would ever do that willingly. 

"So how does this whole thing even work then?" asks Danny. "If you're really a seal or whatever, why come here? Why not go frolic in the ocean or whatever it is you selkies apparently like to do?"

And to Danny's surprise Steve starts grinning. "You."

Danny's lost. "Me?"

"You summoned me. You did it exactly right, during a moment of loneliness, shed seven tears in the ocean during high tide."

Danny blinks, he doesn't remember this at all. 

"I came to make you less lonely," Steve explains. "Though you didn't make it easy."

Steve's eyelids are low and he's looking at Danny with such fondness it makes his stomach squirm. He clutches the jacket tighter.

"Do you know why people usually want to steal selkie skins?" Steve asks.

Danny shakes his head.

"They want to marry one." Steve's voice is low and Danny recognizes the familiar attempt at seduction, only now it looks very different in light of what he now knows. "We're known for our beauty, you know."

"Yeah...uh I think Lori might have mentioned that," says Danny watching him cautiously. 

Steve takes a step closer to Danny and Danny finds that this time he doesn't want to stop it. 

"You weren't easy to seduce," comments Steve.

"I didn't want to complicate our working relationship," answers Danny honestly. And it sounds so ridiculous now.

Steve seems to agree because his face breaks into a grin and he starts laughing.

And he lets Steve lean in and kiss him slowly and Danny feels like there's a lot wrapped up in that kiss. Like it's the only one they'll ever get, an acknowledgment and a goodbye in one.

Danny pulls back first and he's surprised when Steve let's him. And he's smiling now, like he knows this is serious, but he's so happy he can't help it.

"So what happens when I give you back your skin?" asks Danny. Because he has a gut feeling that Steve isn't going to just put it back in his closet and try and find a better lock this time.

Steve looks out at the ocean. And for the first time since they arrived, Danny notices that the seals on the beach actually seem to be watching them. 

"If I go back," says Steve, "I can't see you again for another seven years."

Steve looks at the ocean and the other seals there with such longing that it makes Danny ache inside. And if Steve says he wants to go, Danny doesn't think he'll be able to try to stop him. 

So it surprises him when Steve takes his hand in both of his and looks seriously at Danny. "Come with me, Danny." he says suddenly pulling him up and slowly towards the beach. 

And Danny was sure a minute ago they were all seals on that beach, but looking back he can see a few people pulling off leather coats like Steve's and grinning at the return of their brother. 

And Danny wants to go with him, God help him he does. Because that is apparently the craziness of Steve. But he stops, and it takes everything he has to do it, and when Steve looks back confused, Danny only has to say one word. "Grace."

There is just no way Danny can miss the next 7 years of her life. And the look Steve is giving him it looks like he understands it too. 

So they stand there and look at each other, and Danny understands this really is the last time they'll see each other for a really long time.

"Will it all disappear when you go?" Danny asks. "The task force, our Ohana, am I going to be a detective for HDP again?"

"No," says Steve. "It's all real. Every bit of it."

Danny nods. Good, he thinks. He can at least keep that. 

"I guess you'll be needing this," he says, offering Steve back his skin. Ready to watch Steve put it on and disappear in the herd of monk seals below. But Steve doesn't reach for it. Just stares hard at it.

And then he's looking back at the beach, at all the beautiful people standing there, grinning at him. Looking like they missed him. 

He turns back to Danny, and looks him over like he's considering something. "Why don't you keep it?" he asks.

"But wouldn't that mean--?"

"That I'm yours," Steve says grinning now at Danny like this is the best idea he's ever had. "That we can be together," he adds. "That I can stay as long as you'll have me."

 _Yeah_ , thinks Danny, _all those things_. "But what about the ocean?"

"Maybe one day when Grace is older you might not mind leaving for a few years," Steve suggests. "Or maybe we can take her with us."

"Okay," Danny breathes and accepts another kiss, and he's not entirely sure what he's agreeing to here, but he knows it means he gets to keep Steve. And that feels like the most important thing in the world. And really, crazy's always been part of the package with Steve.


End file.
